Beauty And The Beast Of Burden

In my last post, I wrote about re-reading a letter I had sent to someone I referred to as the “recipient,” and noticing one factual error. The recipient was the Chief Justice, and after re-reading some of my blog, I realised there was actually more than one error. All of them appeared in the same two paragraphs, so the real issue is my memory in relation to this particular incident. Below are the two paragraphs I am referring to.

"In 1997, when I was sixteen years old, I was working a casual job at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre while still at school. One afternoon, needing black socks and running late for work, I went into Big W in Rundle Mall with a friend to buy a pair. Faced with a long queue at the checkout and anxious about being late, I made a poor decision and stole the socks. I also took a packet of M&Ms.

As we were leaving the store, a security guard stopped us and asked to check my bag. When he found the items, he asked us to follow him upstairs. I burst into tears and, when he indicated that he was about to call the police, I begged him not to. I have previously stated that I have never name-dropped, and I did not do so here; rather, I matter-of-factly told the security guard that my mother was the Tourism Minister, and that if the matter were escalated it would likely become public. I did not say this in a threatening manner, but to explain the potential consequences of involving the police. After a stern reprimand, he chose not to call the police and allowed us to leave."

On 7 December 2024, I wrote a blog post entitled Flight SQ278. In it, I recounted the event, but there are two differences between that post and my recent letter to the Chief Justice.

First, I was not at school at the time. Apparently, the Adelaide Entertainment Centre was my second job, my first being at McDonald’s.

The second error is that my blog post states the security guard called the police and that it was the police who decided not to charge me. I have no recollection of that and had always thought it was the security guard who decided to let us go. However, given that I wrote this in my blog post, I can’t be certain of the details.

What I can be sure of is that I told someone about my mother’s public position and that a decision was made to let us go. What I can also be sure of is that there is a stark contrast between my experience as an obnoxious young white teenager who was given a slap on the wrist for shoplifting, and that of Veronica Nelson — a 37-year-old Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman — who was incarcerated and left to die for the exact same crime.

I’m annoyed at myself that my memory is a little sketchy when it comes to my shoplifting encounter, however my memory of my unpaid fines incident is as clear as day.

In 2011, when I was living in Sydney, I experienced a profound sadness that paralysed me in many ways. My behaviour became increasingly erratic, and to say I was irresponsible would be an understatement. For more than a month, I was unable to get out of bed. During that time, my car — parked on Jersey Road near my apartment in Woollahra — was accumulating a large number of parking fines. On the rare occasions I went outside to check the car, I would pull a whole stack of fines off the windscreen, go back inside and then put them straight in the bin.

Eventually, I managed to get out of bed, clean myself up, and make my way to Canberra. Life went on, albeit in what felt like an altered state of mind, and my parking fines became a distant memory. I don’t know where the reminder notices were being sent, but one day the sheriff knocked on my parents’ door and informed them that I had accrued $20,000 in unpaid fines. I’m still not entirely sure of the logic behind this, given my parents were in South Australia and the fines were incurred in New South Wales. However, my parents had the means to pay the debt, and they did. 

That situation would never occur now. I am a responsible person and meticulous with my finances, and any fines or discrepancies are something I take very seriously. But if it were to happen again, the outcome would not be the same. Neither my mother nor I has a spare $20,000 to pay off unpaid parking fines. However, at the time when I was in genuine legal trouble, my parents were able to intervene and remove me from it.

Not long after, on 4 August 2014, Ms Dhu, a 22-year-old Yamatji woman in Western Australia, died from untreated pneumonia and septicaemia following her detention in the South Hedland police lock-up for unpaid fines. Over a 48-hour period, she was taken to hospital twice but returned to custody each time, as police dismissed her extreme pain as drug withdrawal. The Coroner’s Court of Western Australia later found her treatment to be “unprofessional and inhumane,” and her death became a catalyst for reforms that ended the routine imprisonment of people for fine defaulting in that state.

I am certain that if I were an Aboriginal woman, the outcomes of both my shoplifting incident and my unpaid fines would have been very different.

I’ve recently written about how I’m sick of myself for writing letters to the editor of The Advertiser. I’m also sick of myself for writing letters to judges. As I mentioned, I wrote another letter to the Chief Justice, and I absolutely should not have done that. The first letter and the bound book were one thing, but the letter I’ve just sent was entirely inappropriate, and I’m angry at myself for having written it.

It’s like when I wrote that letter to the editor in response to Alexander Downer’s op-ed. Who do I think I am? Do I honestly have such a high opinion of myself that I think I’m worthy of challenging a former Foreign Minister of Australia? Do I think I’m so insightful that I can provide commentary to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

With both letters to the judge, I also made a point of saying that I did not want a response from him. Fair enough once, but the second time feels more than audacious. I wrote to him, involuntarily pulled him into my world, and then effectively said, “You don’t get to say what you think of this. You don’t get to tell me to fuck off if you want to.” Frankly, I think I may have put him in a difficult position, because he probably would have wanted to politely ask me not to write again.

I won’t write again. And it’s not really about him — it’s about the deeply concerning love I still feel for a retired NSW District Court judge. But the Chief Justice really is my hero. He is measured, sensible, and good, which is the exact opposite of my judge. I also just like him — not romantically or inappropriately, I just like him.

He would probably think I’m an elitist name-dropper, given that I told him about my father. That was the flip side of my concern. I was worried he might read my letter and want to meet me to talk about my father, so I made it clear that I didn’t want to hear from him. Partly because I couldn’t bear it, but also because, like that judge in Sydney, if he were to get his associate to contact me and invite me to come and have a cup of tea, I would want to go — but I would have to say no.

I would have to say no because I am incredibly fat, I don’t have a husband, a house, or a job, and at nearly 45 years old I am just about to start an undergraduate degree. These are the kinds of things judges judge you on, and I am done trying to prove myself to the judiciary.

To move on from the judge in Sydney, my first instinct was to go on a letter-writing frenzy and then learn glass-blowing, creating a piece made up of the letters burned in the furnace. I tried so hard to get that going, but in the end nothing came of it. I’ve always liked the idea of exploring non-traditional ways of dealing with psychological issues, and I think I’ve finally thought of something that might allow me to move on from this judge for good.

I am going to hold an art exhibition in Sydney. It will be legally themed, and I will heavily promote it. Perhaps, out of curiosity, the judge will come. I don’t even know if he is still alive — he would be turning 75 this year if he is. Someone once asked me if I would ever like to see him again, and I said no, because I wouldn’t want him to see me getting old. The issue now is that I am extremely fat. I would rather die than see him again like this, but if I could get this exhibition together in, say, a year, I could lose the weight. I actually think I could do it in six months, and I have already started trying aggressively.

The exhibition will be called Beauty and the Beast of Burden. It will be a series of paintings. In each work, Lady Justice will be depicted as a different woman. A judge will also appear in every painting, along with an apple core at the bottom of the composition, representing the apple Eve ate in the Garden of Eden.

A depiction of Halley’s Comet will appear in the background of each painting, because I am drawn to the coincidence associated with Mark Twain. Twain was born in 1835, the same year Halley’s Comet appeared, and he famously remarked that he expected to “go out with it” when it returned. In 1910, as the comet passed Earth again, Twain died, turning his observation into one of literature’s most uncanny coincidences.

The following are some of the compositions I have come up with.

Taxi Cab Rule
Lady Justice is hailing a taxi. In the hand raised to flag the cab, she holds the scales of justice. The taxi that has pulled up beside her is driven by a judge. In her other hand, she carries a suitcase filled with legal documents.

Garden of Eden
Lady Justice is painted as Eve, with the judge depicted as Adam. She holds the scales of justice in one hand and a snake in the other.

Call to the Bar
Lady Justice is a stripper on a pole. She grips the pole with one hand and holds the scales of justice in the other. The audience is made up entirely of judges.

Queen of Hearts
Lady Justice is depicted as the Queen of Hearts, seated on a throne. She holds a sceptre in one hand and the scales of justice in the other. At her feet lie the severed heads of judges.

Cowgirl
Lady Justice is portrayed as a cowgirl, holding a lasso and the scales of justice. On a nearby horse sits a judge.

It’s Magic
Lady Justice is the magician’s assistant, while the judge is the magician, pulling a white dove from a top hat.

In Chambers
A judge sits at his desk in chambers while a chambermaid, dressed as Lady Justice, cleans the office. She holds a duster in one hand and the scales of justice in the other.

In each painting, the judge is a legal authority, but he also represents the broader ways in which society — and men in particular — judge women.

I can’t believe I am sitting here, fifteen years after I met this judge, still talking about it. In that time, women have been married, divorced, and widowed. I could have fifteen-year-old children, a house, a PhD, a good job — but somehow I just couldn’t make it work.

I hope I haven’t annoyed the Chief Justice with the awkwardly forthcoming letter I just sent him. I’m waiting for a bit of time to pass before I stop worrying about him contacting me, although I suspect he won’t. He may not even have received the letter at all. Hopefully his associate had the good sense to decide it wasn’t appropriate and didn’t pass it on. But even if they did, it doesn’t change anything.

I’ve written to chief justices in every country in the world, and to judges all across the Pacific and beyond, and nothing has made it stop. I’ve heard it said that it takes a moment to fall in love with someone and a lifetime to get over it. I think that’s true. I really do.

Nothing That Breathes

Last night I wrote a longish letter and sent it off today via Express Post. Once it was sent, I knew I had no control over whether the recipient would read it or even receive it, but it was something that mattered to me to send.

I re-read the letter afterwards and immediately felt annoyed with myself — there is one factual error. When referring to my mother’s job in 1997, I wrote Tourism when I should have written Employment and Youth. This kind of mistake genuinely irritates me. I want to be accurate at all times, and in this case I can’t correct it.

My first instinct was to write another letter to point out the error, but I decided against it. I’ve been told that I’m a perfectionist in some areas of my life, and that’s probably true — though in other parts I am the most imperfect person you could possibly imagine. I’ve let this one go. I suppose it also shows how little I knew about my mother’s life back in 1997, which, unbelievably, was 29 years ago this year.

I haven’t written too many long letters like this one, although I have written a few. Each time I do, it makes me want to be a writer — an author. I’d love to sit at a computer all day or night and blurt out a story. I think it would take twice as long to edit it, but that’s half the fun.

I’d like to share with you a few ideas for books that I’ve had over the years.

I Thirst

This book is about a man who is a judge during the period of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. He is bitten by a vampire and becomes one himself — an immortal creature with an eternal thirst for blood. Over centuries, he wanders the earth, presiding over some of history’s most famous trials: the trial of Socrates; the trial of Joan of Arc; the trials of the Spanish Inquisition; the Salem witch trials; the Nuremberg trials; the Rivonia Trial of Nelson Mandela; the trial of Ted Bundy; and the O. J. Simpson trial.

Around the time of Jesus, the Judge spends time in the orbit of Jesus and the disciples. There are whispers and rumours that he is a vampire, but no one ever confronts him directly. After the Last Supper, the Judge approaches Jesus privately and asks how he might break the curse of vampirism. Jesus tells him that the only way to be free is to drink His blood. The Judge says he cannot do that.

Jesus then embraces him.

As they hold one another, Peter — the fisherman and future first pope — watches from behind a staircase. Peter already suspects the Judge is a vampire, and the moment raises an unsettling question: has the Judge just drunk the blood of Christ? When they part, there is a small trace of blood on Jesus’s neck — enough to leave the reader wondering what really happened. Jesus tells the Judge to go. From that moment on, as the Judge continues through history presiding over trials, the Catholic Church quietly observes him.

In the present day, the Judge sits as a District Court Judge and he is bored and disillusioned with existence. Having seen everything and experienced everything, he is no longer easily interested or engaged — until he meets a young court officer.

They slowly fall in love. One day, in an anteroom between courtrooms, the court officer catches sight of the Judge’s fangs. She runs, hysterical, to the Sheriff’s Office, screaming that the judge is a vampire. Her distress is so extreme that she is detained under the Mental Health Act and admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The Judge visits her there.

I never worked out how it ends.

I think I Thirst is a fitting title for this book, as it references the fifth of the Seven Last Words of Jesus on the cross, while also alluding to the defining experience of a vampire.

The Farm

This book is set in the present day in a large city, most likely in the United States. A period of law reform is underway, tightening already severe penalties for minor crimes. For offences such as larceny, custodial sentences have become almost automatic.

Those convicted are transported, along with others, in large trucks to a remote facility known only as the farm. People rarely return. Within the city, the farm has become a source of widespread fear.

Upon arrival, detainees are sorted according to gender, age, and other identifying biometric characteristics. Women of childbearing age are separated and subjected to forced reproductive processes. They are artificially inseminated and required to carry pregnancies to term. On the day a child is born, it is taken from the mother immediately, despite her distress. She is then connected to machines and used as a biological resource.

The farm itself operates as a grotesque extension of industrial agriculture. Human bodies are produced using advanced 3D-printing technologies combined with living materials. These bodies are brought to life through the harvesting of organs taken from the detainees.

A male journalist enters the facility undercover. From within, he observes the systematic processing of people as they are moved through sealed metal corridors. The detainees can smell the blood of those who have been killed before them and attempt to flee, but there is no escape.

While undercover, the journalist falls in love with one of the women held for reproduction. The novel becomes not only an exposure of the farm’s operations, but a comment on agriculture, consumption, and the point at which efficiency eclipses humanity.

The Canaanites

This book is set in the present day, spanning Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. It unfolds against the backdrop of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, depicting a system of apartheid and portraying Israel as committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Alongside Israelis and Palestinians, the novel introduces an unspoken third claimant to the land: the Canaanites. The Canaanites are the indigenous peoples of the land later known as Israel, long before the emergence of the Israelites as a distinct group. In the world of the novel, Canaanites live throughout the globe, largely in secret. They exist across all levels of society, from the powerful to the marginalised, and there are quiet whispers that they are mobilising an army to liberate the Palestinians and reclaim the land of Israel from the Israelis.

In the biblical narrative, the Israelites are portrayed as violently conquering Canaan, destroying cities and displacing its inhabitants, with commands to leave “nothing that breathes.” In this story, that narrative is turned back on itself: if historical priority is used to justify modern territorial claims, then it is the Canaanites — as the earliest known inhabitants of the land — who possess the strongest claim of all.

The novel does not imagine the Canaanites mobilising an army to reclaim the land. Instead, it envisages a United Nations–mandated re-sectioning of the territory, after which the Canaanites become the controlling authority. Under this new regime, Palestinians and Canaanites are governed by civil law, while Israelis are placed under military law. The power dynamics are deliberately reversed.

Canaanite authorities enter Israeli homes in the middle of the night, detain people without charge, deny building permits, and demolish homes built out of necessity. Movement is restricted through permits, checkpoints, and segregated roads. Legal systems are divided, with different standards applied to different populations. Israeli society is subjected to invasive surveillance, economic constraint, and collective punishment — the same structural conditions long imposed on Palestinians.

This period is not intended to be permanent. After a brief but destabilising reckoning, the Canaanite authority disarms Israel, dismantles its nuclear arsenal, and initiates legal processes to hold Israeli leaders accountable for grave crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people. This is done without subjecting Israelis to prolonged discomfort in what they argue is their homeland.

There is no mirroring of the most extreme violence that Palestinians have endured. At no point are Israelis subjected to rape, mass killing, or the deliberate targeting of civilians. The power exercised by the Canaanites is bureaucratic, legalistic, and procedural — a cold reflection of systems rather than an eruption of brutality. The suffering imposed is structural, not sadistic.

The story ends not in triumph, but in peace. The land is no longer governed by claims of divine entitlement or historical exception. Instead, it is reordered around shared civil law, equal rights, and the acknowledgement that no modern state can claim exclusive ownership over a land with so many layers of history beneath it.

There are a few other books I’ve thought about as well, and they are considerably more juvenile than these three. They involve tardigrades, stegosauruses, and magical worlds. Even writing that now makes me want to sit down and bring those stories to life.

But the ideas I’ve just described are too dark. I don’t want to live my life down that kind of rabbit hole, and to be honest, I don’t even want to spend my time thinking about these things — judges, animal cruelty, and most of all genocide and apartheid in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories.

If I were twenty years younger, I might have made the effort. Now I just want to make stuff, work at my dream job, and travel the world.

My Rebel God

It’s been ages since I last wrote here. In fact, this is my first post for the year.

The truth is, I’ve been incredibly sad, scared, inspired, and excited — often all at once — and somehow writing in my blog has been the last thing on my mind. Still, all in all, it’s been a good start to the year.

I’m really looking forward to getting into the heart of things again, while also making sure I manage myself and my responsibilities with a bit more precision — giving my 100% to everything I do.

There are parts of my life I’ve decided are out of bounds for this blog, and I’m going to keep those lines where they are. But I did want to start by mentioning that I had another letter to the editor published on 6 January.

The letter was about Donald Trump kidnapping the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores. I wrote about the hypocrisy of this, given that only a few weeks earlier Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45 year sentence for drug-related crimes.

You can read the letter below.

Dear the Editor,

The recent U.S. seizure of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, has been justified in the language of law enforcement and morality — allegations of drug trafficking, corruption, and criminality. Yet this justification collapses under even minimal scrutiny.

Only weeks earlier, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez walked free from a 45 year sentence in the United States after receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. This is despite having been convicted in a federal court for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy that prosecutors said helped flood the country with hundreds of tonnes of cocaine.

The contrast is stark. One leader, convicted after due process, is absolved. Another, accused but not convicted, is subjected to extraordinary force. Not only is Maduro and Flores's abduction legally unjustifiable; it also falls short on moral grounds.

This is not a defence of Nicolas Maduro or Cilia Flores. It just got me thinking about the broader danger that arises when powerful states use fanciful legal rhetoric while disregarding the law altogether. In such circumstances, international law ceases to function as law at all. It becomes branding — a tool used to legitimise power rather than restrain it.

If drug trafficking and human rights abuses are truly the red lines they are claimed to be, they must be enforced consistently. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Kind regards,

Me

About a week later, I sent this letter to the editor:

Dear the Editor,

I would compare Peter Malinauskas’s support for the removal of Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah from Adelaide Writers’ Week to the kind of reckless political behaviour more commonly associated with Donald Trump.

To conflate a Palestinian writer and academic with the Bondi terror attacks is unjust and deeply irresponsible. It represents a clear disregard for basic principles of fairness, replacing reasoned judgment with fear and political expediency.

I agree unequivocally that Jewish Australians must feel safe and protected, particularly in the aftermath of the horrific violence at Bondi Beach. But that concern cannot be selective. Palestinian Australians also deserve safety and dignity — especially while Israel has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of them women and children.

To Ashton Hurn and the State Liberals: I understand the argument for seeking to criminalise the phrase “From the river to the sea” on the basis that it is genocidal in nature. That debate focuses on words. But what cannot be ignored is that Israel has been committing an actual genocide against the Palestinian people for over two years now. I do not recall hearing the State Liberals make any mention of that reality.

If genocide is to be opposed, it must be confronted where it is occurring — not displaced onto language while the violence itself goes unaddressed.

Kind regards,

Me

I knew it wouldn’t be published — they can’t keep printing the same person’s letters repeatedly — but I still felt compelled to write another one on the issue:

Dear the Editor,

Calling Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah a “hypocrite” in response to her removal from Adelaide Writers’ Week avoids the real issue.

The question is not what positions Dr Abdel-Fattah may have taken in the past. The question is whether it is acceptable to remove a writer from a public literary festival because her presence is suddenly deemed uncomfortable.

The decision to remove Dr Abdel-Fattah from Adelaide Writers’ Week was not an act of cultural sensitivity. If cultural sensitivity were genuinely the concern, it would not have taken the form of removing a Palestinian voice from the program. The decision was poorly judged and pre-emptive in nature, driven by fear, timing and political discomfort. In the process, Dr Abdel-Fattah was implicitly associated with the horrific events at Bondi that had absolutely nothing to do with her.

Dr Abdel-Fattah is not a hypocrite. She is experiencing the signature treatment Palestinians know all too well: being told repeatedly and without adequate justification that their presence is unwelcome.

The real hypocrisy is invoking fairness while practising exclusion.

Kind regards,

Me

They didn’t publish that one either. And then I realised something about myself.

I don’t want to have an opinion on everything. I don’t want to be one of those people who constantly has something to say. I want a light, simple, easy life, and even though no one reads or cares about my letters, I think there’s something to be said for silence.

I’m not saying I don’t believe one voice can change things — I deeply believe it can. But I’m sick of myself. I really am. I want subtlety and restraint. I don’t want to be some ridiculous foghorn mouthing off to The Advertiser every week.

That’s not to say I’ll never write again. But for now, I’m going to concentrate on the good things life has to offer. Anything less feels a little too dark for where I’m at at the moment.

I’m over pushing my views on people. But I did quietly fall a little bit in love with the former Treasurer of Australia, Wayne Swan, over something he shared on X.

He reposted the following tweet:

“Jewish people boo @AlboMP on arrival at the Bondi vigil, yet support Netanyahu who allowed 1,200 Israelis to be slaughtered by Hamas and then oversaw the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza. It is beyond belief that such hypocrisy can become respectable.”

If I ever meet another partner and if they ever hold a position — whether in a workplace, a sports club, or a community of some sort — I hope they have the gumption to use that position in the same way Wayne Swan did. To speak up, even briefly, even imperfectly.

Apparently he later took the tweet down because of the controversy around it, but I still love that he chose to repost it in the first place.

Since I last wrote, I’ve donated plasma twice, which takes my donation tally up to six. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t donate because I think I’m a particularly good person — I do it mostly because I love the Red Cross.

Lately though, I’ve found myself getting a bit caught up in the numbers. I’ve got my seventh donation booked in for about a week and a half, and for some reason I’m really looking forward to hitting the ten-donation milestone.

Below are two photos I snuck while donating.

Something else cool that’s happening is that I’ve finally found my spiritual home.

I’m not a religious person, but I love Jesus the man. I call him my rebel God. I’ve been looking for a place where I can celebrate the love I have for him as a man, a revolutionary, and someone who stood with the poor and the marginalised and wasn’t afraid to stick up for them.

I’ve mentioned before the history I have with Tanzania. I love the people — I love African people. I pretty much love all people, but there’s something so warm and colourful about Tanzanians, and honestly about every African person I’ve ever met.

I found this gospel church in Davoren Park. They meet on Friday nights and Sunday mornings, so last week I asked Rebecca if she would come with me. She agreed, and we found our way there together.

We were the only white people there, but we were welcomed with open arms. It was a spectacular, genuinely life-changing experience. It felt like we were sitting in the Festival Theatre listening to the voices of a beautiful African gospel choir. I honestly can’t explain how extraordinary it was.

They were loud, bold, and the most inspirational thing I’ve seen in a long time. When they spoke, they spoke in Swahili, with an English translator alongside — this magical mix of multicultural worship. I absolutely loved it.

The service went for two and a half hours, which was a bit too long for Rebecca, who won’t be going back, but for me, when it finished, I spoke to the pastor and asked, “Can I go here?” He told me I was more than welcome. He also said that many of the congregation were from Tanzania.

It was a true gospel service in every way you’d imagine — but probably even more beautiful than you’re picturing. A slice of heaven, right here in Adelaide.

I drove up there again last night, but they told me there wasn’t a service on because they were having a big meeting. I didn’t mind at all. I still got to chat with some of the people there, who were just as friendly and welcoming as before.

They were very apologetic that I’d driven all that way and there was nothing on, but I honestly didn’t care. I can’t wait until next week.

I joined the Liberal Party of Australia 28 years ago, in 1998. I was 16, and my parents got me to join. I ended up being a member for about 21 years, with the odd year missed here and there.

It’s strange to realise that for all that time I belonged to a political party that was never really a reflection of my own beliefs or core values. There was a point where I resigned and joined the Australian Greens, but after a while I left the Greens and went back to the Liberals. I don’t really know why I did that, and I don’t know why I stayed a member for so long.

Watching the federal party more recently — particularly its position on Israel and the situation in Gaza — I knew I could no longer be part of it. And on a personal level, I’ve been incredibly impressed with Albo, Mali, and the unions, so joining the Australian Labor Party makes sense to me now.

My mum thinks it might be “a thing” if I do that, but I don’t. No one really cares about me or my political beliefs, and that’s fine. What I do know is that I belong as a rank-and-file member of the Labor Party. I don’t want to hold positions or get jobs or influence anything — I just want to be part of it.

So I resigned from the Liberal Party. I’ve resigned before, but this time it felt final. I have no ties or links to the party anymore, and beyond that, my soul feels detached from that right-wing nonsense.

I haven’t joined Labor yet — I’m going to wait until after the election.

I started my adult life aligned with the Liberal Party, then spent over twenty years wandering around it like a blithering idiot. Now I’m ready to spend the rest of my life with the Labor Party, where I think I actually belong.

My mum, on the other hand, is still a raging Liberal. She even told Jack Batty’s office she’d put signs for the election up in the front yard. You can see one of them below.

There was an insanely windy night a little while back and the wind ripped the signs right out of the ground. Mum decided after that she didn’t want them anymore, so just yesterday someone from Jack Batty’s office came and picked them up.

On Thursday, Mum was planning to go to the state memorial service for former Labor senator and minister Nick Bolkus. Even though Mum is heavily involved with the Liberal Party, she said she shared a genuine friendship with Mr Bolkus.

In the end, she decided she couldn’t make it to the service, but on Thursday night we watched the whole memorial on YouTube. It was fascinating hearing about the incredible life of someone like that.

In a strange way, the service reminded me of Dad’s funeral — which I didn’t attend. One common thread between the two was that Peter Malinauskas spoke at both. Mali didn’t know Dad particularly well, but he clearly knew Mr Bolkus.

One story he told really stayed with me. There was a constituent that several of Mr Bolkus’s colleagues hadn’t had much luck dealing with, so Mr Bolkus said he’d meet with him because he believed he could help. During their meeting, the constituent told him that everywhere he went, the government was following him — watching him, recording everything he did.

Mr Bolkus told him to leave it with him. He stepped out of the room for a while, then came back and said he’d made a phone call and taken care of the issue. He told the man he wouldn’t be followed anymore, and that he wasn’t to tell anyone about the conversation — it was done.

Mali said that sometime later, Mr Bolkus ran into the man and got a thumbs up, as if to say everything was all good.

I loved that story for so many reasons. It made Mr Bolkus sound like a very special person, with a great sense of humour and a deep kindness that didn’t need to make a big show of itself.

I found it interesting that Mr Bolkus met Yasser Arafat. I wonder what they said to each other, whether there was a translator, and whether it was a friendly meeting.

Both of his daughters spoke. I didn’t like one of their speeches, but the other one made me cry.

They talked about how he’d had a stroke and later developed Parkinson’s. I don’t really understand why things like that happen to people like him — good people who make a real difference in the world — and then have to end their lives in that way. It doesn’t feel fair.

I’m glad Mum and I watched the service together. I think she wished she’d gone in person, but it was good that it was available online.

Late last year, I applied for a job at the SA Pathology call centre. I’ve actually worked there before as a temp and, from memory, the role is essentially answering calls from doctors and providing blood test results.

I applied because at the time I’d also applied to study a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Adelaide University, and I wanted a job that would work around uni hours. By the time I was offered an interview, I’d been accepted into the degree and suddenly the idea of fitting work around university felt much more real.

Then, after I’d already applied for the SA Pathology role, my dream job was advertised. It’s a State Government role, and I’m not going to say what it is — except that I want it more than life itself.

I applied, but I hadn’t heard anything back. When I contacted the listed person, they told me they were still a few weeks away from shortlisting. I didn’t know whether to go ahead with the SA Pathology interview because I wanted to keep myself available for the dream job, but a few people advised me to attend anyway. Some even said that if I got the SA Pathology job, I should take it and then leave if the dream job came through. I would never have done that — but I did go to the interview.

It had been more than ten years since I’d last been at a job interview, and I was very nervous. There were three women on the panel. I spoke about boundaries, stakeholders, decision-making, and confidentiality. But as I sat there, I realised just how much I didn’t want the job.

You’re essentially the bearer of bad news. You know what’s going on in people’s bodies because of their blood tests. While many of the results aren’t catastrophic, some of them are. I know you can’t always be picky when it comes to work, but I didn’t want this role.

When I got home, I emailed the contact person to thank her for the opportunity to interview, but told her the job wasn’t for me. She thanked me for letting her know and said I’d ranked very highly in the interview.

So now I have my uni place — and this time it’s brought me so much more happiness than it ever has before. This time, I’m actually going to do it, and I’m going to give it everything I’ve got. I’d also been worried that after applying for and accepting degrees through SATAC so many times in the past, I might not get in this time — but I did, and I celebrated that quietly.

Now I want the job. If I don’t get it, it won’t be the end of the world. But if I do… I’d be living my dream life.